Staffing moves at EMAC servicer

Betsy Vartanian, the senior-most member of the Enterprise Mortgage Acceptance Company (EMAC) workout team, recently left her post at GMAC Commercial Mortgage's Univest Financial Services, which began servicing the trusts shortly after EMAC missed a servicer advance back in April.

From a ratings perspective, generically speaking, the impact of a staffing issue at the servicing level has the potential to have a material impact on the overall franchise pool performance, Fitch said.

"But at this point in time, we have not ascertained that there are any operation problems which would warrant rating actions," said Warren Wells, franchise analyst at Fitch.

Officials at Univest and GMACCM either did not return phone calls or declined to comment as of press time. However, outside sources have said that there is already a temporary replacement for Vartanian in place, though this was not confirmed by the company.

"Betsy was extremely good, very knowledgeable, and she returned phone calls," said one source close to the developments, who chose not to be named.

Univest became a subsidiary of GMACCM when it was acquired by GMAC's McCracken Financial Software in January.

EMAC securitizations have had a windfall of problems this year, following EMAC's exit from the lending business. The series 1998-1 and 1999-1 were most recently downgraded by Fitch in September, when the trust missed an interest payment. Though there are continued credit problems, the missed payment was a result of GMACCM recouping servicing advances, which are taken from the top of the waterfall.

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